


i thought you hated games

by portions_forfox



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-13
Updated: 2012-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-21 20:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portions_forfox/pseuds/portions_forfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How she can know him so well when he doesn’t know a fucking thing about her is beyond him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i thought you hated games

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an anon prompt at the Parks & Rec Rare Pairs Comment Ficathon @ LJ.

He’s gotten used to the smiles; the grins, the laughs, the extra piles of whipped cream -- he’s grown accustomed to it all. Accustomed to a feeling of warmth, a contentedness he’s never felt for this long of a stretch before. Accustomed, maybe, to the concept of optimism.

‘Growing accustomed’ is something Ben decided a long time ago he should never do to anything, except handling yearly tax returns and eating Ramen Noodles. But he’s gone and done it now, which is why it’s a quick check back into reality when Leslie assigns him the job of recruiting the mayor of Indianapolis to endorse her on her run for city council, and assigns it to him with the co-partner of April Ludgate. 

“Just go!” she insists with a wave of her hand when he pulls her by the arm out of the Knope Campaign Headquarters/Ann’s living room to give the whole idea a quick nip in the bud. (This is a phrase he had never in his life used before meeting Leslie. Like. Ever.) “It’ll be fun! You should get to know your team members better, Ben!”

Ben glances over his shoulder back into the living room -- everyone’s milling around, sipping sodas, chatting about the rat infestation at the Pawnee Middle School (just one rat, really. Ennis was his name. He was actually extremely fat and slow and easy to catch, and animal control had had multiple opportunities to exterminate him and would have done so if it hadn’t been for the kids’ frantic demonstrations of friendship, namely, shielding Ennis’ fat hairy body in a circle and chanting, _Ennis is our friend!_ ). Chris is even demonstrating a voracious breathing exercise designed for pre-defecation. No one is paying attention to he and Leslie down the hall.

Except -- oh, yeah -- April. She sits on that leather couch and she stares. And stares. Yeah, she’s definitely not looking away. Shit.

Ben turns back toward Leslie, ushering her further down the hallway. Leslie, of course, is happily oblivious to his panic.

“Okay,” Ben says, “closer to my team members. But why _April_?” and he lowers his voice to a near-inaudible hiss. He can’t help feeling that April has some sort of superhuman hearing senses she probably picked up from Orin.

“Ben!” cried Leslie, aghast. “Because April is a smart, beautiful, capable, valued member of this campaign team who is able to tap into a strong variety of manipulative talents to convince others to give her what she wants! Also, Ron’s not available.”

Ben glances back over his shoulder one more time while Leslie glances at her watch. (She and Ann haven’t had their daily Personal Life Helpfulness Chat, and she’s getting a bit antsy.)

Leslie pops one hip. “Come on, Ben,” she says in her ‘let’s-get-real’ voice. “Do you honestly trust April to get anything done on her own?”

No. He doesn’t.

 

 

The first thing she does when she gets into his car is turn the radio on to a heavy metal station and crank up the volume, then proceed to stare straight ahead in complete, unbroken silence.

Trying not to be rude (despite the fact that this is _his_ car, and she’s the one about to blow his speakers into oblivion, so in actuality it’s _April_ who’s being rude and he shouldn’t even have to be saying this right now because he’s _not_ scared shitless of her, he’s really not), Ben yells over the inharmonic screeches,

“So you like death metal?”

April doesn’t even flick a glance his way. “No.”

 

 

The music’s been off for a while when Ben starts babbling.

“So . . . how’s married life, huh? Being married. That’s cool. I mean, you _are_ pretty young to be married, I guess. You’re . . . like, twenty-one? Twenty-two? I’m thirty-six. So you’re . . . fourteen years younger than me. And you’re married. And I’m not married. I mean -- it’s not that -- it’s not that I don’t _want_ to be married -- well not, you konw, right now, no, but someday, I guess. Soon, maybe. Well, no, not soon, Leslie and I are just -- well, if it _is_ Leslie I’m going to -- ”

“Oh my god, would you just shut up?”

“Shut up, yeah, good, yeah.”

His knuckles are white on the steering wheel.

 

 

“Ugh, I’m bored,” April groans, kicking off her shoes and propping her feet up on the dashboard. She looks sideways to the driver’s seat, daring him to scold her. He doesn’t.

“Let’s play a game,” April says.

“I thought you hated games.”

“I do, asshole. Now listen, here’s the game.” She sighs and lets her back slide down the seat till the sticky soles of her feet are pressed against the windshield. Pushes. “I ask you a question, and you have to answer it, even if it’s like, a really hard question.”

“Hard like calculus?” Ben asks, a little excitedly, “or hard like -- ”

“How old were you when you lost your virginity?”

“ -- that. Um. I’m not answering that.”

“Come on,” April implores, and there’s no more emotion in her voice than there ever is, but somewhere in the way she sits up and leans against his side and whispers in his ear Ben convinces himself that there is. “Answer me.”

He gulps, grips the steering wheel tighter than before.

“No, April.”

And just like that, she’s done with the game. She flops back in her chair, her feet returning to the dashboard and her eyes returning to the window. She’s gotten what she wanted.

 

 

In Indianapolis they have a meeting with the mayor and Ben doesn’t stumble over his words this time, doesn’t stutter, doesn’t sweat, doesn’t giggle. He reminds the mayor of all the times Leslie had helped out his career, all the instances where she made choices that benefitted both Pawnee and the capital. It honestly doesn’t take much.

“Leslie’s a friend,” the mayor says. “Strong-headed, smart, compassionate -- the perfect candidate for city council. She’s got my full backing.” He tilts his head a little -- “And so damn _cheerful_ , that one.”

Ben smiles, remembering her smile, remembering how little he smiled before he saw that smile. 

“Yeah,” he says. “She is.”

 

 

Ben’s still grinning like a maniac when they step out of the mayor’s office, so of course April breaks her silence by looking straight up at him and saying,

“I don’t see what the point is.”

Ben’s still on a high -- he barely notices the words coming out of his mouth, barely notices that he’s taking her bait like he’d trained himself not to.

“The point in what?”

“In doing this.” April promptly begins picking at her cuticles, like she’s nervous over something. Ben can’t imagine what April Ludgate has to be nervous about. “Campaigning for Leslie, I mean. She isn’t going to win. She’s like, way behind in the polls.”

Ben stops walking, and April stops too. This time she won’t look him in the eyes; just keeps picking and picking at her fingernails.

“Why would you -- ” Ben starts, and he’s squinting, headachey. “Why would you even say something like that?” He shrugs his arms because that’s the only angry gesture he really has in his repertoire, wants to know. “Leslie is your friend, and there’s -- there’s no reason to -- ”

And she looks at him now, but this time he’s looking at her, eyes meeting head-on. This time it’s person to person, April to Ben. Her eyes are dark, and they’re not like Leslie’s.

“Because it’s the truth,” April shrugs. “Remember that?”

He could let it go, because it’s petty, because it’s April, because it’s _the truth_ , but he’s angry at her for making him angry, for ruining this, ruining this all for him, so he storms off (trying to leave her stumbling behind), and he says,

“You just _had_ to do that, didn’t you?”

“Do what?”

“You saw that I was happy so you had to take that away from me.” And now he really is mad, really mad, and he can’t tell why he’s so mad and that scares him so his anger grows. “Why do you _do_ that to me, April? Always to me. You don’t mind when Leslie’s happy, or when Andy’s happy, or when -- ”

“Because that’s not you,” April tells him suddenly, simply, quietly, and she sighs exasperatedly like he’s stupid for not knowing it. “You’re not happy like them, Ben. You’re unhappy. So stop kidding yourself.”

She leaves him stumbling behind.

 

 

How she can know him so well when he doesn’t know a fucking thing about her is beyond him.

 

 

He isn’t quite sure how this happened.

It’s dark around them on the drive back to their hotel, which makes the bright yellow lights inside the car seem like a big glaring anomaly to Ben. April stares out the window again, and is silent. He keeps glancing at her, agitated, knows sometimes a glance can stick. He finally can’t take it any longer.

“Just because I -- ” he starts; stops. “Just because I’m not . . . I’m not _happy_ like her doesn’t mean I’ll fuck it up with her, or fucking -- fucking _cheat_ on her, April,” he blurts. April doesn’t react, and he glances from the road to her empty face, the road to her face again. “I won’t.”

So maybe he’s not a cheerful person. So maybe he’s playing Leslie’s happy game. So maybe he’s pretending, for a little bit. So maybe he’s enjoying it. That doesn’t mean he’s going to fuck it up.

It doesn’t.

April shrugs, and it somehow means absolutely nothing and absolutely everything. The line of her cheekbones is carved in shadow, and they look sharp enough to sting. “Okay,” she says. “So don’t.”

 

 

He does.

 

 

“How was your trip?” Leslie wants to know once Ben gets back.

He shrugs his shoulders, clears his throat. “It was . . . you know. It was fine.”

She beams at him, in full Leslie splendor -- “See?” she says, nudging his arm with her elbow. “I knew you two would get along. You are more alike than you think.”

Ben glances back over his shoulder, and this time it feels more than deliberate that April’s not staring back at him.

“Yeah,” he tells her, and so maybe his tongue tastes a little bitterer carving out the words. “I think maybe you’re right.”


End file.
